


Not your classic “high schoolers think summoning a dark entity is a good way to solve their problems” situation

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [24]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fainting, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Skeletons, The Reaper Squad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23508259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: " Lup passed out on the stairs.'Lup!?' Kravitz yelled, to no response.  'Barry!''Little busy!' Barry shouted back, swinging a skeletal arm like a baseball bat and whacking a kid with a black cloak and a snapback right upside the head.  "-----I.e. Barry's the only one around here with any sense
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556773
Comments: 8
Kudos: 90





	Not your classic “high schoolers think summoning a dark entity is a good way to solve their problems” situation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizzy_Writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzy_Writes/gifts).



There weren’t too many physiological differences among the races. It was well known that dwarves had much higher consitutions, and they were capable of breaking down nearly anything in their digestive track. They were also prone to terrible heartburn. Gnomes needed a great deal more glucose than the other species, and an elf under the age of forty shouldn’t be given much glucose at all if you want to keep them from bouncing off the walls. Humans were much more prone to seasonal allergies than anyone else, and orcs tended to run three degrees hotter than the acceptable average. But beyond that, everyone was fundamentally the same. 

Except for the Wandering Fever. 

Elves were the only species known to get it, sun elves more than Eladrin, and drow almost never. Old wives’ tales would tell you it was the sickness caught when elves lost their sense and wandered too far from home, but modern science would tell you otherwise. 

Once the virus was caught, the fever lasted three days before vanishing as quick as it set in. It wasn’t the worst disease, surely. 

The problem was Kravitz didn’t know that.

Kravitz also didn’t know the twins nearly as well as Barry did. Barry had over a century of familiarity with them. He knew their habits and their body language, how they slept, how they ate, how long they would take in the shower, and the slightly upturned mouth corner that meant you were about to walk face first into one of their pranks. He knew the way Lup leaned into the nearest person when she wanted a hug, and how the tips of Taako’s ears would start to twitch when he was trying very hard not to cry. 

He didn’t know how reluctant the twins were to admit illness or injury. Barry once saw Taako hide a broken foot from Merle for seventeen days because “it wasn’t that big of a deal.” Once Lup had made herself sick with exhaustion, and it was only while she was half-conscious and throwing up that she said, “okay, maybe ya girl is a bit tired.” 

They were on a hunt, something easy, baseline. Your classic “high schoolers think summoning a dark entity is a good way to solve their problems” situation. It should have been an easy in-and-out.

They were in the house and creeping silently towards the door to the basement steps-- Barry in the lead, Kravitz and Lup trailing behind, when Kravitz noticed Lup swaying a little bit when she walked. 

He watched, and when she did it again, he caught her elbow. “Hey,” he whispered, and she blinked a few times before her eyes focused on him. “Are you doing okay? **You look like you’re about to fall over**.” 

She blinked once, twice, and then shot him a thumbs up. Barry was already pushing open the door and tiptoeing down the stairs. “I’m fine, babe,” Lup said, patting Kravitz’s cheek with a gloved hand. She rolled her shoulders back and traipsed down after her husband, and Kravitz had no real choice but to follow her. 

Two things went wrong that they hadn’t really been expecting. 

Firstly, the “high schoolers” they’d been planning to intercept turned out to be stupid, eccentric post-bacc’s. Rather than summoning a dark entity for childish fun, they were conducting necromantic experiments for private research. So the basement was full of hipsters and skeletons, all animated and angsty and ready to fight.

Secondly, Lup passed out on the stairs.

When it happened, Barry was already knee deep in skeletons, and Kravitz was drawing his scythe to start dealing with the co-eds throwing necrotic energy around like it was a hacki sack. This was the point where Lup would generally conjure up a fireball, but when Kravitz turned to her to see what was the hold up, he watched her stumble down the last step, grab blindly for the railing, and collapse. 

He yelped, nearly falling down the stairs himself as he dove to catch her. She was deadweight in his arms, and Kravitz’s heart kicked itself into beating so fast he almost got dizzy. 

“Lup!?” he yelled, to no response. “Barry!” 

“Little busy!” Barry shouted back, swinging a skeletal arm like a baseball bat and whacking a kid with a black cloak and a snapback right upside the head.

“What the fuck,” Kravitz wondered aloud as he lowered her carefully to the ground and knelt next to her. Someone rushed him, and Kravitz barely spared them a second glance before knocking them under the chin with the butt of his scythe and shoving them backwards. He turned back to the unconscious elf. “What the -fuck-!?” 

She wasn’t moving. Was she dead? She was breathing, and she hadn’t gone all spectre on them. Okay. Not dead. “Barry!” 

Kravitz knew... very little about mortal ailments. Typically his company was already dead when he reached them, or they were just up to shenanigans like the basement full of dummies they were currently dealing with. He’d helped the elderly pass through terrible things, like cancers and coughs and the brittling of the bones, but Lup was too young for any of that. 

He felt her forehead and immediately jerked his hand away. She was -hot-. Not warm, but burning. Had she been hit with a spell? How had he not noticed? 

“Barry!”

Barry was under a dog-pile of skeletons. Kravitz heard a muffled curse, then the floor shook with a thunderwave that sent the whole lot of them scattering into piles of displaced bones. Barry shot a quick blast off into some kid’s chest and turned in Kravitz’s direction. He froze mid-shout, looked them over quickly, and dropped a palm over his forehead.

“Gods damn it,” he said. “I -knew- she looked off this morning, but -oh no, babe, I’m fine, really, don’t be so paranoid-” he said the last bit in a poor mimicry of her voice, then let out his frustration in a backhanded scythe swing that caught a floppy-haired attacker right in the nose. 

Kravitz was still feeling a bit panicked, still half-convinced that Lup might beef it right in front of them, and Barry seemed to notice by the way he said, “Help me tie these guys up, and then we’ll get her home.” Kravitz didn’t see any reason to doubt him. 

They tied them up, all huddled together and back to back, wrists and ankles bound and then all of them tied together. It would take them at least forty-five minutes to work themselves free from this one. Kravitz gave them the typical “don’t give us a reason to come visit you again” speech while Barry stood behind him and shook his head in disappointment. 

Only three of them had the manners to look ashamed of themselves.

As soon as that was done, Barry was back at Lup’s side, worry now showing itself on his face as he shook her into consciousness and helped her to sit up, half-cradled against his chest. 

They were midway through a conversation when Kravitz made his way over. 

“--scared Kravitz to death,” is what he walked into, and he sputtered indignantly. 

“Good thing he is death,” Lup said with a weak chuckle. Barry rolled his eyes. 

“He thought you -died-.”

“She fell down the stairs!” Kravitz protested, and Lup grinned all big and cheesy.

“Awww,” she said, voice a bit slurred. “Skeletor likes me.” 

Barry sighed. “What am I going to do with you?” 

“A hand home would be nice, actually.” 

Barry ended up carrying her home, despite half-hearted protests that she was fine and she could walk, -really-, while Kravitz cut a portal open straight into their living room. They could deal with the paperwork later. 

The house was just as they’d left it. Quiet, a bit messy, two coffee mugs on the table and the cats snoozing in the window sills. 

“Wonder if Taako caught it too,” Barry wondered idly, and Kravitz set off to find him. 

He found Taako rather easily. His husband was in the kitchen, precariously balanced on a chair with his forehead dropped onto the table and his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. Kravitz crept in, placed a hand on Taako’s shoulder, and started to say, “Darling, are you--” when Taako jumped out of his skin. 

He flinched, fully body, and swung a startled fist that Kravitz quickly caught and cradled in both of his own. He pressed a kiss to Taako’s knuckles, and Taako blinked at him wearily through a curtain of hair before grinning and sagging back into his chair. 

“Oh, just you,” he said, voice a bit croaky. It was a strange sound. 

“Just me,” Kravitz agreed. “Are you well?” 

“I’m golden,” he said, cleared his throat, grimaced, groaned. “ **I might be a bit under the weather.** ” 

“Lup is sick,” he said, and just like that, Taako was throwing himself out of his chair and stumbling off down the hallway. Kravitz followed close on his heel, ready to catch him the second he collapsed-- he’d learned his lesson the first time-- but Taako made it unevenfully up the stairs and to Lup and Barry’s bedroom. He bumped into the door frame and leaned all his weight into it. Kravitz put a hand on his waist -just in case-. 

“Aha!” Taako declared, volume no where near normal. “Fuckin’ knew it.” 

Lup held up a middle finger from a mountain of pillows Barry had buried her in on the bed. “Bite me.” 

“Sicko.” 

“I caught it from -you-.” 

“Don’t blame your cooties on me, goofus.” 

“Then don’t fuckin’ give em to me, dingus.” 

Taako coughed, then, and Lup hauled herself up into a sitting position while Kravitz nearly jumped out of his skin -again- with worry. Lup frowned. She said, “Get your skinny butt in here already,” and Taako let go of the doorway to kiss Kravitz on the cheek and crawl onto the bed next to his sister. He collapsed face first next to her, and Kravitz watched while idly wondering whether or not he was now diseased. 

Barry popped out of the restroom with two glasses of water in hand. “Oh good,” he said. “You found him.” He handed one glass off to Lup and prodded Taako in the ribs until he whined and flopped over onto his back. Barry handed him the water. 

“There’s a potion mixed in, you need to drink -all of it-. This will help with the fever. Just call if you need anything, we’ll be right here, okay?” He handed them both wash rags to place on their foreheads and he pressed a kiss to the crown of Lup’s head before heading for the doorway. 

“Love it when you take charge, babe,” Lup said, teasing, and Barry blushed. 

He said, “You’re not sexy when you’re sick.”

Lup scoffed, and Taako gagged. “I’m sexy all the time.” 

Barry’s hand on Kravitz’s arm pulled him into the hallway. Kravitz was still a little shell-shocked, so he followed him out, down the stairs, and into the living room. He took a seat on the couch while Barry disappeared, and when Barry returned he was holding two cans of pop. He tossed one at Kravitz. 

“They’re fine,” he reported. “Fever, sore throat, stomach cramps. They’ll be real whiny for a couple of days, then they’ll be fine again. It’s not going to kill them or anything.” 

Barry dropped onto the couch next to him, making it bounce a little. He nudged Kravitz’s arm with his elbow. “Good catch, by the way,” he said, and popped his can open. “Wanna watch fantasy Myth Busters?”


End file.
